The holidays have now come and gone in a fair number of places, though they’re technically still going until the 6th in Iceland (though my classes have already started, thanks to a professor who thinks it’s ok to start classes before the university semester eve begins)! That means that it’s a good time to reflect on all the good fun and good beer the holiday season brought. Chiefly, I am quite proud of the good run of Christmas Beer (Jólabjór) I had, pictured here in chronological order from left (oldest) to right (newest).

I ended with the Viking Yule Bock on New Year’s Day, which seemed like a fitting time to complete my collection. In truth, I wasn’t really planning on making a new year’s post as I felt like the “closeout” post from last time, which was quite extensive, offered up a good bit of coverage. I was just planning on mentioning the beer in a future post and leaving that at that. However, sometimes something happens that is just profoundly blog-worthy, and sometimes such a thing (literally) comes in with a bang.

Yes, SB and I got to experience New Year’s Eve in Iceland, and boy oh boy, was it a spectacle. Unlike many cities, Reykjavík has no formal fireworks display on New Years. What!? You might ask. Well, you needn’t worry. Despite having no “official” fireworks display, the fireworks that went off here were absolutely mind-boggling, and far, FAR surpassed anything I’ve ever seen. How so? Well, you could almost call it “crowd sourcing” a giant, mutli-hour long fireworks display. SB and I knew that fireworks were big here (literally and figuratively), but we had just no idea how big. Per the city of Reykjavík’s website, over 500 tons. Yes 500+ tons, of fireworks are launched by the local denizens. I find that number entirely believable.

Now, if you read my previous post, you’ll noticed that I mentioned “10-15 spontaneous displays” starting at 2pm and going quite late in the days leading up to the New Year. The funny thing, is that I actually edited that upward from 5-10. Turns out the fun was only just beginning. The evening of New Year’s Eve started.. well, more around like 12:30pm and then lasted until sometime after we went to bed at 2am the next morning. The fireworks started well within our narrow band of daylight (impatient, lol) and then really began to pick up once it got dark in the afternoon. Before too long it sounded and looked like we were in a war zone.

As a photo won’t do it much justice, I’m going to try to post a video here. I rarely post videos via the blog interface, so we’ll see how this works. You’ll definitely need volume to fully appreciate the war zone like vibe to it.

Assuming that works properly for you, you’ll have hopefully heard what I was referring to with the war zone bit. That went on for hours, and hours. Until eventually the entire horizon (and right next to us) was just a smattering of slowly escalating fireworks and flares, lots of flares too.

The interesting bit is that yes, the fireworks build and build, but then right around 10:30pm they almost entirely stop. Indeed, if you pay attention you’ll notice that pretty much everything stops. Suddenly there’s no traffic, no party noise, and only a few pockets of fireworks continue paired with a lone flare or two lazily floating towards the earth. What is so particular about 10:30pm you might ask? Áramótaskaupið.

Yeah, try saying that one five times fast. Áramótaskaupið, which translates to “New Year’s Eve’s Ridicule” is a television show that airs from 10:30pm to roughly 11:30pm on New Year’s Eve in Iceland, and has without fail since 1966. Áramótaskaupið, or often, just “skaupið,” is a comedy/variety show that focuses on the closing year from an extremely satirical standpoint. It’s known for being quite ruthless in its portrayal of events, individuals, trends, etc. It’s also insanely popular with Icelanders. Not only are the ratings some of the highest in the world, skaupið also retains a massive percentage of the country’s population as viewers. Some years have seen the viewing numbers as high as 95.5% of the country’s population. I don’t mean viewing population, I mean, literally, 95.5% of the entire country watched the show. While not confirmed by any record-keeping source that I can fine, this viewership has been said to be a record in television history.

So, things get quiet for a little while because almost everyone has just went inside to watch Áramótaskaupið. We watched it too!

Granted, it’s almost entirely in Icelandic (aside from a few bits making fun of tourists), so we were a bit limited in the uptake, but a few skits required no comprehension of Icelandic to appreciate.

Of course, the real craziness comes after Áramótaskaupið ends, usually sometime in the 11:20 – 11:30pm range. As everyone goes back to their fireworks arsenal, things begin to build exponentially, especially around 11:35pm as all battle stations are manned again by then. The result is an ever-building crescendo that builds so much steam it not only blows through the stroke of midnight, but keeps going well past the bell’s toll to the point that you can’t help but wonder if Iceland is fending off the largest aerial raid in human history. Here’s a video taken at some point around the midnight hour.

As one Icelander I spoke to put it, “On New Year’s Eve we go to war with the sky.” I thought that was pretty apt. It was absolutely crazy. Plus, as mentioned, it just kept going and while it did calm down after a bit, they were still sporadically launching fireworks until about 11pm on January 4th. So yes, fireworks are a big bid deal – and that isn’t even counting their upcoming return on Þrettándinn. [Update: Þrettándinn ended up being pretty crazy too, with fireworks until 2:30am or so, and they were quite loud as the nearest bonfire was only about 2 blocks from our house.]

But, as we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into, we had some other, smaller-scale festivities planned for the Dinosaur Bear household. You have to keep yourself busy in your concrete bunker during the fireworks apocalypse in order to avoid cabin fever, after all!

First, I made us some slow-cooked lamb stew, with beer, potatoes, red cabbage, onions, mushrooms, and a bunch of spices. We had it with toasted bread and “Sød Fransk Sennep” or Sweet French Mustard. It was quite yummy – plus we had leftovers for more New Year’s cabbage.

We paired it with some also-yummy ice cream, and then later moved onto the drinks, of course! In addition to the aforementioned Christmas Beers, we also had a couple of specialty items. The first, is the famous Brennivín. Brennivín, which I’ve mentioned before, is an Icelandic unsweetened schnapps made from fermented grain or potato mash and flavored with caraway and is generally in the 37.5-40% ABV range. It’s unofficially Iceland’s Iceland’s signature distilled beverage and is the traditional drink for the mid-winter feast of Þorrablót. It’s also seen paired with kæstur hákarl, which I discussed in my Westfjords Post.

It was SB and I’s first time having it (woo we’ve now had both it and kæstur hákarl), and despite not being hard alcohol people we both agreed it was pretty good (for hard alcohol). We tried it a few times straight to get it’s full flavor, and then experimented with mixing it into a few different things (orange juice: no, Sprite: yes). We both got a bit of a fruity/minty vibe from it and we much preferred it to vodka, with which it is sometimes compared but is actually quite different.

We also tried Barley Wine for the first time.

We’d been meaning to try it for awhile, and SB actually picked some up a few weeks ago – we just decided to save it for the holidays. Our mutual reactions were Taco: 2.5/5.0 and SB 0.5/5.0 – so as you can see, lukewarm to outright disgust, lol. I actually ended up finishing SB’s for her, as I didn’t think it was nearly as bad as she did. It’s an interesting thing to describe, sort of beer, sort of really heavy wine, and our variety clocked in at 10% ABV. Would I drink it again? Yes. Would I drink it often? Definitely no.

The last of our alcoholic adventures was this little fellow, Birkir Snaps.

This drink was an impulse purchase, because it sounded interesting. Birkir Snaps is an Icelandic distilled grain spirit which uses Icelandic birch, picked during the spring, as its primary flavoring element. So yes, that is a twig you see in the bottle.

It’s just a special Icelandic twig. Obviously this one had some very woody flavors, with a bit of freshness to it that I’m not well-versed enough in non-beer to describe. I liked it a bit less than the Brennivín, but it wasn’t so bad I couldn’t drink it. We still have a bit left, and will probably try mixing it with something, though the birch-flavor isn’t a typical mixing platform.

Now, if our air raid fireworks, food, and copious amount of alcohol don’t sound like a good enough time for you, we also went full on rave.

Yes, courtesy of a well-placed endcap at Bónus we picked up three glow-bracelets and a pair of glow-sunglasses for New Year’s. Naturally these quickly became the boys’, and it is the boys who retained them for almost the entire evening, complete with epic red Yule-lad candle lighting for their rave.

In fact, by the time we finally rolled into bed around 2:00am, Tristen wasn’t quite ready to stop the rave, so we booted up some classic Sandstorm and let him get in a few more sweet moves.

The funny thing is, despite the package saying that the bracelets/glasses would glow for 6 hours, the red and green bracelets lasted more like 12 hours, and the glasses lasted for about a solid 24 hours (though very faint by the end). Definitely good value for the small amount of money we paid for them. A ravers gotta rave, ya’ know.

Anyways, that’s a good recap of our crazy, fireworks-laden New Year’s Eve exponanza. It was a lot of fun, and most certainly contained a bunch of unexpected surprises!

I hope you had an enjoyable New Year’s celebration as well! Here’s to 2018!

This is likely my last or second-to-last post for 2017, so I’ve decided to have a bit of fun! One of the best things about traveling is getting to learn more about other cultures – or, as Mark Twain once put it:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

The holidays are an especially good occasion for such exploration, and SB and I have definitely taken to trying to learn more about Iceland’s Christmas traditions. In this post I’ll share what I’ve learned, though the obvious caveat here is that I don’t know Icelandic, so I’m mostly relying on translations and interpretations of other people. That said, I’ve relied almost exclusively on materials written in English by Icelanders, so hopefully I don’t share any egregiously incorrect information! So let’s get started!

The first thing to know about Iceland’s Christmas (Jól) traditions is that they can trace their lineage well into the mythos of Icelandic folklore. These are, by and large, not modern tales woven to sell you Christmas cards. They’ve certainly been streamlined, modified, combined, and clarified over the years – but the basic foundation is extremely old. These customs are also much more… “old world,” than those cuddly feel-good Christmas tales which have largely been adopted into mainstream U.S. culture. If you thought coal was cruel, how does being torn to shreds by a giant cat sound? Yep.

I, however, find these tales to be far more interesting – indeed, the older more “raw” versions of classical tales which lack their contemporary filters often appeal to me far more than their Hallmark Channel counterparts. The core messages are still roughly the same: be kind, love your family, and be festive. The difference here is that yo’ ass gets eaten alive if you’re naughty. Hard lands breed hard men.

So, with that framework in mind, let’s discuss how things work. Here I should probably note that a lot of the modern iterations of these characters stems from Jóhannes úr Kötlum’s 1932 poetry book, Jólin Koma (“Christmas Is Coming”). So while there are a lot of different very-very-old tales from which these characters are woven, that modern source is the primary basis for this post.

First off, clear your mind of Santa – he wouldn’t last a night in the harsh world of Iceland’s folktales. Instead, think of the 13 “Yule Lads” also known as the Yuletide-Lads or Yulemen – or in Icelandic, jólasveinarnir or jólasveinar. These 13 “lads” are trolls (or half trolls, not entirely sure as different sources referred to them as both) who come to visit the human population of Iceland around the holidays. The Yule Lads make up, what I would call, the crux of the Christmas festivities here in Iceland. But in order to fully understand the importance of the Yule Lads, we must first discuss their mother, Grýla.

Grýla is a troll/giantess who is said to currently live in a cave somewhere in the Dimmuborgir lava fields (which, as you will soon see, is somewhat fittingly where Satan came crashing down from Heaven in Icelandic Christian folklore).

Here Grýla lives with her somewhat lackadaisical third husband and father of the Yule Lads, the troll Leppalúði – but we’ll talk more about him in a second. Grýla is noteworthy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that she is very, very old. She was first referenced in text during the 1200s, so it’s not unlikely that she’s even older than that. Grýla’s death has been noted more than once, but the old troll seems to know to cheat death itself, because she just keeps coming back to plague the Icelanders, specifically Icelandic children – and by plague I mean drag them screaming into the blackness and eating them alive.

The good news is that Grýla apparently only goes on her carnivorous quest around Christmas, meaning that your chances of meeting a terrible fate at her hands are restricted to at least a small slice of the year. Further good news, Grýla can be staved off simply by resisting the urge to be naughty. Due to some mythological rule-set, or perhaps just a very odd sense of morality, Grýla only eats bad children. If you found the prospect of coal to be a lukewarm deterrent to engaging in the oh-so-much-fun act of being naughty, perhaps a savage death is a bit more of a barrier to naughtiness.

Now, if you might be thinking that Grýla’s husband Leppalúði is likely to be just as malicious of a character. Turns out, not so much. I mean, he looks mean and probably isn’t the type of creature you’d want to run into in a dark cave, but in comparison to Grýla he’s quite tame – and apparently quiet lazy (or at the very least, aloof).

Now, with a wife like Grýla it’s not surprising that he definitely appears to be the submissive partner in the relationship. Add in the fact that Grýla just up and ate her first husband (and let’s be real, likely her second husband too) and you get an environment in which ole’ Leppalúði has probably learned to keep his trap shut and just tend to the cave and the children like a good husband. Indeed, Leppalúði – at least from what I’ve read – seems to be a bit of a (comparatively) mild-mannered homebody who mostly keeps the feck out of Grýla’s way (can you blame him?) and who probably spends most of his time dealing with the Yule Lad’s antics. In some ways the Yule Lads might be described as the balance between Grýla’s evil antics and Leppalúði’s buffoonery. The good news for us humans is that Leppalúði doesn’t seem to go hunting for people in the same fashion as his wife does.

That’s not to say that Grýla is the only bad news. While her husband might be tame, and while the Yule Lads are, as we will soon discuss, prone to mischief as opposed to murder, Grýla also owns a giant cat known as the Yule Cat (Jólakötturinn or Jólaköttur).

Now let’s be clear, this is not your average domestic cat. The Yule Cat might better be described as a “monster” in that it is huge and hungry for humans. Whereas its master (Grýla) preys on naughty children, the Yule Cat hunts down and ravages those who haven’t gotten any new clothes to wear prior to Christmas Eve. Oh, and lest you big-people think you are safe, the Yule Cat eats adults too – though naturally children are of course also on the menu!

So now you’ve got a nice picture of Mom ‘n Pop and their carnivorous cat, so let’s discuss the real stars of the show, the Yule Lads.

There are, in the modern iterations, 13 canonical Yule Lads (though this number has drastically varied over the lads’ long and storied history – see my comment about Jóhannes úr Kötlum above). Unlike their baby-eating mother, lazy father, and deadly pet, the Yule Lads care much more about being mischievous and having fun (mostly for them, less so the people they annoy) around Christmas time. A lot of this stems from the fact that their mother keeps them locked away for most of the year, unable to explore the great outdoors. It’s only around Christmas that she lets them out to play – or perhaps Leppalúði just doesn’t have the energy to corral the Yule Lads while Grýla and the Yule Cat are off eating people. Regardless of the exact manner in which they are able to get out and about, the 13 Yule Lads start to “come to town” one at a time on December 12th, and each Lad has a different set of characteristics which define the antics they get themselves into.

The 13 lads, with English translations, as well as their arrival and departure dates are listed below.

Icelandic name

English translation

Description

Arrival

Departure

Stekkjarstaur

Sheep-Cote Clod

Harasses sheep, but is impaired by his stiff peg-legs.

12 December

25 December

Giljagaur

Gully Gawk

Hides in gullies, waiting for an opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk.

13 December

26 December

Stúfur

Stubby

Abnormally short. Steals pans to eat the crust left on them.

14 December

27 December

Þvörusleikir

Spoon-Licker

Steals Þvörur (a type of a wooden spoon with a long handle – I. þvara) to lick. Is extremely thin due to malnutrition.

15 December

28 December

Pottaskefill

Pot-Scraper

Steals leftovers from pots.

16 December

29 December

Askasleikir

Bowl-Licker

Hides under beds waiting for someone to put down their “askur” (a type of bowl with a lid used instead of dishes), which he then steals.

17 December

30 December

Hurðaskellir

Door-Slammer

Likes to slam doors, especially during the night.

18 December

31 December

Skyrgámur

Skyr-Gobbler

A Yule Lad with an affinity for Skyr.

19 December

1 January

Bjúgnakrækir

Sausage-Swiper

Would hide in the rafters and snatch sausages that were being smoked.

20 December

2 January

Gluggagægir

Window-Peeper

A snoop who would look through windows in search of things to steal.

21 December

3 January

Gáttaþefur

Doorway-Sniffer

Has an abnormally large nose and an acute sense of smell which he uses to locate laufabrauð.

22 December

4 January

Ketkrókur

Meat-Hook

Uses a hook to steal meat.

23 December

5 January

Kertasníkir

Candle-Stealer

Follows children in order to steal their candles (which in those days were made of tallow and thus edible).

24 December

6 January

As you can see from the table, each Lad arrives on a separate date, and they stay “in town” until all of them have arrived, upon which they start departing – again one at a time – back to their mountain home. In total, this means that the Yule Lads are causing chaos in some format or another from December 12th all the way until January 6th.

If this story has seemed a bit… unpleasant.. thus far, what with the deadly endeavors of Grýla and the Yule Cat, coupled with the Yule Lads’ seeds of chaos, and Leppalúði’s “meh whatever” attitude about all of it, then have no fear, things perk up from here. While the Yule Lads have changed a bit over the centuries, their current manifestations are also known for bringing presents to those who act properly! Of course at a basic level you need to be good (lest their mom find you), and you also need new clothes (lest their cat eat you), but also need to leave one of your shoes on the window sill of your room to let the most-recently arrived Yule Lad know you are there! If you really want their good graces, you will also leave them a treat – but make no mistake, this isn’t a one-size-fits all cookies-and-milk fallback. Each Yule Lad has their own preferred “treat” and you don’t want to mix them up! Some are easy to remember, for instance Skyrgámur (Skyr-Gobbler) likes Skyr most of all. Whereas others, like Þvörusleikir (Spoon-licker) have less obvious tastes, such as carrots . Still, others, like Stúfur (Stubby) are likely to eat whatever you leave them without much fuss. In addition to food, you can also leave certain Lads items such as spoons (wooden!) or candles.

If you follow the proper protocol, you’ll likely to wake up to a present/treat of your own in the shoe you left out (as well as some classical Yule Lad mischief). However, if you don’t follow the proper traditions and/or are naughty, you’ll just get an old potato! An old potato might not be much, but it’s better than being eaten alive, though the potato is probably a warning sign that you need to start cleaning up your act real quick-like, lest Mommy Dearest find you.

It’s also important to note that the Yule Lads, much like their foreign counterparts, only come at night. Being trolls (or half trolls) and living in a dark cave most of the year has made their eyes sensitive to the light, so be sure not to leave too many lights on when you leave out your shoes and treat – the Yule Lads see far better in the dark! If you do find yourself face to face with a Yule Lad, a surefire way to get their good graces is to wish them a Gleðileg Jól (Happy Christmas).

It’s also worth noting that if you follow the proper procedures and have a bit of faith, that the Yule Lads have been known to travel far beyond Iceland’s coasts to leave presents for those who tempt them with especially good treats. So if you aren’t in Iceland, but still want to participate in some Yule Lad fun, you know what to do – just watch out for Grýla and her monstrous cat.

So there you go, a nice primer on the Yule Lads and their crazy family.

But that’s not all that goes in Iceland during the holidays. While the Yule Lads provide the backdrop to the season, there are a few other events and traditions that are widespread.

The first is Aðventa (The Advent) which starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and is the “official” start of the season in Iceland. It’s also when most of the Christmas lights begin to appear. In addition to modern lights, traditional Aðventa came in two formats: an Advent Wreath with four candles (one for each Sunday of Advent), and a seven-candle candelabra which was, being quite bright, was believed to keep out the winter’s darkness.

If this talk of lighting has you wondering about Christmas trees, then have no fear, Iceland has those too – though they are a more recent phenomenon in the manner you probably imagine a Christmas tree. For most of Iceland’s settled history there really weren’t that many trees that could be cut down, so the Christmas trees were made of wood scrapped together from other things, and then mounted with juniper branches and candles. As Iceland “opened” to the world (and attempts at reforestation began), real live Christmas trees became more accessible, and today most Icelanders use Christmas trees which appear much like those you’d find elsewhere – and they predominantly use real trees as opposed to fake ones. One interesting note is that the Christmas trees themselves often weren’t (and aren’t) lit in the home until just a day or two before Christmas, but the lights are left up until January 6th (which just so happens to be the last day the Yule Lads are around).

Second, I’m sure you’re wondering about food. Well, there’s all sorts of it, just like anyplace else. A few notable examples are the vast array of cookies which get baked, as well as the staple of Laufabrauð – which, directly translated, means “leaf bread.” The baking of the Laufabrauð is a family event, and great care is put into making the Laufabrauð as fancy as possible – sometimes it ends up so fancy that it gets turned into decorations as opposed to being eaten! Laufabrauð is generally served during both Christmas and New Year’s, paired with delicious smjör (butter).

There is also a traditional drink which is a mixture of locally produced malt (Maltöl) and orange soda (Appelsín). The mixture, Malt og Appelsín, is so popular that it can be purchased pre-mixed as Jólabland (Christmas Mix), though many Icelanders still take the time to mix it themselves. The exact ratio of malt to soda is hotly debated, and that’s territory I shan’t risk entering. 🙂

While foodstuffs beyond the sweet include the scrumptious fare that you might imagine for Iceland, including: herring, smoked and cured salmon, reindeer pâté, smoked lamb, roast pork with rind, rack of ham, turkey, and more – December 23rd brings about something a bit more intriguing, Skötuveislur or fermented skate. Skate is a type fish, which as you might have guessed, has been fermented. Traditionally this one done by sealing the skate in a closed container for a month or more (sound familiar?). The resulting dish is known just as much for its extremely pungent smell as its taste. In fact, I’ve been told that the smell is so difficult to get out of your house that a lot of people opt just to go get Skötuveislur from a restaurant these days. I’ve yet to try this delicacy, and honestly after kæstur hákarl I can’t say I’ll be seeking it out. That said, it’s still a strong tradition, so if you find yourself in Iceland on December 23rd you’ll know what that pervasive smell in the air is!

Perhaps the smell of fermented skate brings about thoughts of the after life. As on December 24th (and on New Year’s Eve) Icelanders remember their departed loved ones. They do so by visiting cemeteries and leaving candles on the graves of the departed. One of the most aesthetic cemeteries during this time is Hólavallagarður, a cemetery from 1832 which overlooks Tjörnin – so not very far from us at all.

There’s also the “Christmas Book Flood” which you may have seen as the following image floating around social media.

In Icelandic this is refereed to as Jólabókaflóð (The book flood of Christmas), and it’s largely true to the tidbit being passed around the interwebs. The one big difference is that it’s not quite as confined as the image makes it seem (its more chronologically far-reaching), but it’s still a big deal (and yes chocolate is a part of it). A few weeks ago SB and I noticed that the stores were starting to accumulate a TON of books – we had no idea what was going on at first, but now we do! And for reference, I mean, literal tons of books.

Once you’ve got your new collection of books, you have to be careful, as the holiday season brings bonfires to Iceland – and I mean a lot of bonfires. Long before fireworks made it to the arctic north, bonfires served essentially the same purpose – the symbolic burning of the old year, old sins, and the celebration of bright futures to come. The many “brennur” (burns) are community events and occur mostly on New Year’s Eve and The Thirteenth Night. Also, these aren’t just piddly little campfires, these are legitimate bonfires.

While fireworks have since joined the ranks of Icelandic New Year’s traditions, the bonfires remain.

Finally, as the season winds down, we come to Þrettándinn, the “Thirteenth Night” (the equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon “Twelfth Night” you might be familiar with).

Like New Year’s Eve, bonfires are prevalent during Þrettándinn – but Þrettándinn is also a night of great, ancient, mystery. In Icelandic folklore, Þrettándinn caused strange and mythical beings to stir from their slumber. Many of these awakenings could be dangerous for humans (such as talking cows which would drive those who listened to them mad), and others, such as seals which shed their skins and walked among men, were just downright creepy. Þrettándinn, the official end of the season, also sees elves come out en masse (including the elf “king” and “queen”), as well as other mythical creatures and beasts. It’s also the final day the Yule Lads are in town, and if you make it through the night without falling victim to one of the various dangers of the dark, you’ll also know that Grýla and the Yule Cat have retreated back into the hinterlands for the year.

Like most other aspects of the season in Iceland, while evil and mischief lurk in the shadows, there is a great deal of symbolism to light, family, and the community. So stay close to the fire’s warm glow and those who you care about, and you’re likely to find yourself safe, full of delicious food, and spiritually satisfied even against the long dark night of Þrettándinn.

And that, dear friends, is Dinosaur Bear’s coverage of Jól. This is of course, not an even remotely exhaustive list, and as with any compilation of traditions, beliefs and practices will vary from one family to the next. It also leaves out a few important events, but this is a nice overview to the season, from an outsiders perspective with a focus on what seems especially “unique” to yours truly. I hope that if you’re new to all of this like me, you’ve found it especially interesting, and, conversely, if this is what you grew up with, that I didn’t get anything too out of whack. 🙂

In closing, here is a nice “cheat sheet” of the cast-of-characters (sans Yule Cat) referenced within this post. I’ve left the image uncompressed for easier viewing.

If you’d like an English translation of the poem upon which the modern iteration of the Yule Lads are based, click here.

Until next time,
Gleðileg jól og farsælt nýtt ár!

-Taco

Note: Unlike most Dinosaur Bear posts, the photos in this post are taken from the public websites of other photographers or organizations. All photographic/artistic works represented here remain the property of their respective owners – and as a reminder Dinosaur Bear is a non-monetized blog with no ads or other revenue sources. If you are the owner of one of the photos/works and would like it to be removed, please let me know.

Another year has come and gone, and the world spins ever onward. As such, it’s time to do an “end of year wrap-up” here at Dinosaur Bear, which essentially means 1) Complain about Law School 2) Not complain about the holidays!

Hard to complain about this.

I’ll get the whining out of the way first – last semester might have been the worst since the first semester of 1L and at the very least it was far worse than all of 2L. 3L is supposed to be all “omg so bored” but I messed that up somewhere along the line. Quite frankly I just tried to do way too much. The plus side of it was that I got to do some awesome research assistant work with a really cool professor. The downside was that my actual black-letter law coursework really suffered. Sure, I don’t have my grades yet (since such things take 30 years, give or take, at HLS), but I am profoundly concerned about the outcome of my Tax exam. I ended up studying really.. eh.. ineffectively? for it. Mostly I focused on the language of the regulations and not enough on learning Excel formulas. So naturally the exam was about 80% formulas. It was a good time. It’s the first time in law school that I ran out of time on an exam and just had to blindly guess on a few questions. Which was also part of the problem, a fair portion of the exam was multiple choice. What’s great about a traditional “issue spotter” law school exam is that you can savagely word vomit for 20,000 words and generally will know you didn’t fail (though to be fair I guess even that is situational). Multiple choice doesn’t really offer that chance to vomit. I mean you can literally vomit on your laptop if you like, but it’s not going to get you a better grade plus it’s nasty.

Anyways, Taxation aside, exams were exams. Despite my incessant complaining I generally don’t get that worked up over exams. In fact even on the exams where I’ve done pretty “meh” I’ve not lost any sleep over it. In fact there have really only been 2 classes in all of law school where my exam shitter-shattered me – my very first law school exam, and now tax. Interestingly enough, that first exam is also my worst grade so far, let’s hope Tax doesn’t go for the record. 🙂 [And lest you think a “bad” grade for me is something like a B, nah, I legit got the lowest grade possible above an F, haha – though zero fucks were ultimately given, it’s my hot body I do what I want.]

Oh, and in keeping up with tradition here is a shot of my miscellaneous handouts and notes from the semester – excluding, as usual, the casebooks themselves.

Much easier to complain about this.

But hey, I can’t complain too much (challenge accepted) I got 13 days of no law school. Which in hindsight is kind of funny since in undergrad you get like what.. 3.5 months off for Christmas? Those were the days. Long brakes and classes that didn’t have mandatory law school curves. 😀

Still, in Taco’s world Mandatory Curves = Mandatory Beer. Beer is the life blood of a law student, or at the very least beer is my lifeblood, as a lot of my classmates drink $15 mixed-drinks.

The six-pack that got me through exams, or maybe just 1 evening, I can’t remember.

I also had no shortage of beer through the holidays, which is a good thing. Oh, speaking of beer, if you haven’t looked at it recently or ever, I’ve retired The Beer List – an update explaining why can be found on its page. The TL;DR is that it’s just been streamlined elsewhere.

On the non-beer front, I’m currently knee-deep in J-Term. This is my first “normal” J-Term in that I’m not stuck in that abhorrent waste of life known as the 1L Problem Solving Workshop, nor am I off on magical awesome adventures in New Mexico. Instead I’m taking a straight up doctrinal class. It’s 3.5 hours a day, 5 days a week. Which is about 3 days too many in my opinion. The good news is that class is over at 12:30pm, leaving me all afternoon to do fun stuff like try to finish the 100 pages of reading for the next morning. That’s no exaggeration either, we’re going through a 1107 page book in 11 class periods, not counting the supplemental readings. Still, I’m really interested in the topic – American Indian Law – but it’s just uh.. a lot of law school. I get home from that 3.5 hour class feeling mentally the same as when I’d put in 10 hour days at the DOJ. The good news is that my research assistant position has been delayed a bit due to Congress being worthless, but that also means I’m currently making no money, so it’s a double-edged sword. It will start up before the end of the month, but at the moment I’m kind of glad it’s been pushed back a bit, even in spite of the lack of income.

What I’m really not looking forward to is that with the way J-Term works, you have 1 single day between the end of class and your exam. Then after your exam you have 2 days before the Spring Semester starts. It’s pretty cool. Yep. I live for it, yisssssssssssssssss.

Anyways, enough about that crap. I’ll update on law school again once I’ve done my J-Term Exam and have a more finalized Spring Term schedule (and I also have a cool update about what I’m doing for “Spring Break” to share at some point).

Let’s backtrack a bit and get to the good stuff – that is the holidays!

Yes, the holidays were a happy time of year as usual, even if they were slightly abbreviated due to my exam schedule and SB’s work schedule this year. That said, we didn’t let the shortened length hamper our fun and we partook of all the usual holiday fun, such as eggnog.

Yes, that’s Valentino upside in the couch – he had a bit too much eggnog.

Too much indeed.

December also saw our first bit of snow that amounted to anything.

Though as I type this (1/8) we have a lot more outside – somewhere around 1 foot.

In addition to eggnog we made some cookies for SB to take to various places – we went with a classic: gingerbread!

We made those bad-boys from scratch too!

Of course we also had our little ole’ traditional “Taco’s House” family Christmas, which has grown over the years from just SB, Little Friend, and I to a whole swarm of buddies.

This was Pigsten’s first Christmas. As he is still a hatchling we don’t know how much of it he understood, but he liked all the colorful and shiny packages.

Even Tristen got wrapped up in the excitement.

The big “pressie” this year was Journal 3 from Gravity Falls. Unless you’ve watched the show it would be kind of hard to explain the significance of the Journal, but needless to say everyone was pretty excited about it. Plus, we still aren’t sure where it came from! Mysteries! If you haven’t heard of Gravity Falls, I’d recommend watching it unless you just despise cartoons.

One of the characters on Gravity Falls, “Waddles” is one of Pig’s favorite characters, for obvious reasons.

After having presents and stopping Tristen (multiple times) from casting spells from Journal we all had some Taco-made pancakes and special coffee!

Our family Christmas was two days earlier than usual this year, in large part because rather than flying from Boston back home we decided to take a train! Yep, after our high-speed train ride from Berlin to Munich, our train trip from Chicago to Seattle, and train ride (nearly) halfway across Alaska, not to mention our nearly constant short train trips on public transit, we are a bit hooked on train travel. Plus, as our voyage took us from Boston to Chicago, we’ve now been coast-to-coast on a train! As we’ve largely forsaken our passenger rail network in the US (I can soap-box that for hours, and even took a one-person graduate course in undergrad about this very thing) our options were Amtrak, Amtrak, or Amtrak. So, after the difficult decision of choosing our provider, we settled with Amtrak and booked our sleeper car (seriously the only way to do a train with an overnight component trust me) on the Lake Shore Limited! We later found out that that particular route is one of the worst performing routes in Amtrak’s entire network, but more on that in a moment.

Things started out pretty sweet. After we arrived at South Station we were setting on metal stools with our luggage among the “plebs” as Tristen would say. Well, on a whim I happened to notice that our sleeper cat ticket also got us access to the First Class Amtrak lounge known as “ClubAcela.” So we went from crappy seats in a crowded station, to a private comfortable lounge with free newspapers, coffee, snacks, TVs, etc.

This is what one might call “Shitting in high cotton.”

I took like five Cliff bars – those things are expensive. So, after enjoying our small bit of high society (check your tickets people!) we moved out to our train. We got to bypass all the poor souls in coach and go straight to our sleeper car. It was pretty nice – though in fairness our coach experience on the Alaskan Railroad was pretty awesome, but we also had pretty much an entire car to ourselves, whereas here the train was sold out and Coach was packed and depressing and basically the 1st Circle of Hell.

Meanwhile, we settled into our small (read: tiny) lowest tier sleeper room (which is plenty for us) and took advantage of our free food, drinks, and WiFi!

Tristen isn’t one to miss his football.

While the beer didn’t come free, sadly, we didn’t let that stop us from throwing back a few beers “on the rails.”

For the most part things were rolling along pretty well the first day (it was supposed to be a 19 hour trip) – we even left South Station at exactly the right time, even the Germans would have been proud. However, somewhere in New York things started to go downhill. First there was some sort of accident on – or near – the track which caused us to be held up. I’m still not sure exactly what it was, but when we finally got through the area there were downed power lines, about 5 cop cars, and at least 10 full-sized utility trucks. So, by the time we hit the hay we were about 2 hours behind schedule. The boys stayed up a lot later than us, hunting mice and grubs.

Despite being behind schedule, neither SB or I were too concerned because on our way to Seattle we were at one point 8 hours behind, but then made up all but like 1.5 or 2 hours of that overnight (we got stuck behind an oil train, which I cold also soapbox about – e.g. right-of-ways). So we figured the same thing would happen this time. NOPE. When we woke up we weren’t 2 hours behind, we were six hours behind. By the time we were supposed to arrive in Chicago we are only halfway through Ohio. So yeah. The good news is that SB’s family – who were picking us up – had stayed in a hotel in Chicago the night before, so they weren’t sitting at Union Station twiddling their thumbs. Anyways, as we progressed deeper into the Midwest things were mostly grey and snowy – go figure, but some of the river crossings were really cool (literally) with all the ice.

Once we got out of Ohio things sped up a bit, and pretty much all of Northern Indiana went by fairly seamlessly.

Anyways, we eventually made it into Chicago – about 5.5 hours late. We weren’t overly pleased about that, but given the state of our passenger railways you can’t really expect super performance on long-distance rides. The good news is that despite the large delay, we both enjoyed the trip. The only real downside is that delay caused me to miss seeing one of my friends (and the new Star Wars movie) – and since I literally only see my friends one time per year anymore, that kind of sucked. But hey, we’ve now been coast-to-coast on a train! 😀 The silver lining of being so late was that since I missed hanging out with my friends, we were able to hang out more with SB’s family and we even stopped through our old Stompin’ grounds of Lafayette, IN to have dinner (and beer) at the Lafayette Brewing Company. It was kind of funny, SB forgot her ID in the car and our server gave us a little spiel about “This is Indiana” which was funny because we’re from Indiana, but also because MA is like 50x more anal about IDs than Indiana is anyways.

All in all, we had great fun with the fam-fam. We didn’t stay through New Years this time around, but the Christmas schedule itself was largely unchanged. The Boys got to hang out with their Cousin Scooby.

Pigsten found Grandma Meem’s little holiday village and pretty much stayed there for 48 hours straight – and was surprisingly hard to find!

Pig bonded with his Sensai Mr. Bear, and they discussed Pig’s recent 1000 hour Yoga certification and how Mr. Bear was spending his time enjoying Nirvana.

The humans had pressies, food (oh so much food), alcohol, and family game time. I don’t even remember the name of this particular game, but SB won 20 freaking dollars worth of quarters during it!

I also tried a Budweiser for the first time in probably 5+ years. Budweiser holds a special place for me because it was the first beer I ever drank at the ripe ole’ age of 2 (or less). So, while I’ve moved on to other beers, I generally try to avoid beer-snobbery towards Budweiser specifically. But after getting Daryl 1 a twelve-pack for Christmas and noticing that the beer literally says “America” on the front, I just had to try one.

DIS IS AMERICA.

And it sucked. I mean god it was terrible. What’s weird, is that it was somehow worse than Bud Light. I mean.. what? But bonus points for plastering “AMERICA” all over the front of the now Belgian-owned beer.

The boys also partook of some beer… obviously.

Aside from SB slaughtering us in some quarter card game, we also busted out the ole’ Nintendo 64 which allowed me to redeem my e-peen at Mario Kart.

It was a lot of fun, though those 64 graphics don’t fare so well when stretched out to fill Meem’s TV (which Daryl 1 once broke in a fit of emo rage – seriously, I should tell that story sometime).

We also got out and about some, since our hometown has basically nothing to do in it. SB and MIL were supposed to get tattoos, but fate bitch slapped that idea. So we went and drank lots of beer at a place called “The Tap” – which lives up to its name.

In fact, they not only had an amazingly good selection of beer for Indiana, they had a damn good selection of beer period. Easily Top 5. BIL ordered a freaking $14 beer though, which cracked me up as I still have anal-rage over my $12.16 beer from freaking downtown Washington D.C. Anyways, in order to keep the good times a flowin’ we also went to a liquor store after the pub (which should be a rule) and bought some more beer, which we drank later. The first of which was an interesting offering from Dogfish Head which we mostly got due to the name and label.

Then we had a Rhubarb Sour Ale from “Tin Man Brewing” – in fact this was kind of the reason why we’d went to the liquor store as I’d had another sour from Tin Man at The Tap and the server had recommended this Rhubarb Sour Ale, but The Tap didn’t have it. So we went and found it in true alchy style.

Sours were kind of a theme for the evening, I love sours.

We also had Dogfish’s “World Wide Stout” which was ehm.. not well received. Maybe it was because we had it after the sours, but holy crap, it ended up being 18% ABV. It is not one I’d drink again.

In fact, so unenthused by that stout were BIL and I, that we had to wash down our beer with a beer.

Funnily enough, that “chaser” beer got me a badge on Untappd that I never thought I’d get – “Take it Easy” – which is for drinking twelve beers in one day. Yep, I’d lie and say I’m not proud, but I would be lying. Plus these were 12 real beers, not 12 Coors Lights, so Yessum, I earned that badge. Mmm gamification of alcoholism.

Sadly, for all the good company, good food, good (and bad) beer, and fun times, eventually we had to leave. It felt really short this year, namely because it was shorter than it’s ever been. But, that’s probably the way things will work from here on out. So we just have to make do with the time we had! Being an adult isn’t all fun and games I suppose – though I did get a new toothbrush this year, which was actually my most exciting physical present (not even joking, though it was a fancy $80 electric toothbrush to be fair)! For their part the boys seemed to enjoy themselves just as much as usual, especially their sleepovers and football games with Floppsy.

After a farewell lunch with my Dad, Stepmom, and Daryl 1 (once again at The Coachman) we were on our way by home – this time by plane, which while faster (much faster) than train, is generally far less exciting and magical – though we did make it out right before a big storm which was nice. The one exciting bit was that at some point in the past year Southwest had sent SB (but not me, lol) free drink tickets. So we busted out those bad boys real quick like. I even got to try a beer I’d never had before, “12 of Never” by Lagunitas.

What was even better, is that they didn’t actually take our drink coupons, so we can just use them again!

It was kind of a bumpy flight back, or maybe the beer just made it seem that way. 🙂 Still, there were no issues or delays and soon enough we were flying over the outskirts of Boston.

We then proceeded to fly like 50 miles out into the ocean and take the weirdest approach I’ve ever seen to Logan before, but the landing itself was far less eventful than certain landings I’ve had at Logan in the past. Once landed the first thing we heard at baggage claim was that an entire flight worth of luggage had just uh.. not came? or something. Either way I was like “welp this is gonna be good.” But fortunately for us our luggage came out just fine – albeit slowly, but better than destroyed. From there we made it home fairly uneventfully – though I did time it and it took us 1.5 hours to make it to our front door from the time our plane made it to the gate. Meaning that we can nearly fly 1000 miles in less time than it takes us to go 4.8 miles in Boston. That’s sad.

Once we were home the boys tried out some of their clothes armor they had gotten for Christmas.

Valentino was ready to bring in 2017, even several days before the rest of the world was.

Pigsten was especially enthralled by some dinosaur Christmas socks that Meem got me. They were the “Sock Guy” brand just like my fire breathing T-rex socks.

After getting all settled in from our trip home we had a few fairly normal days. I was mostly working on finalizing my bar application (now sent on its way, woo!), SB was working, and Pig was doing Yoga.

During out first Friday back we tried out a new place called R.F. O’Sullivan & Son for date night, which we’d meaning to go to for awhile. We naturally had some beer. I went with the holiday “Celebration Ale” from Sierra Nevada:

While SB went with one of her standbys of Allagash White.

Part of why we tried out R.F. O’Sullivan & Son was because it was right across the street from Star Market, which we needed to visit in our ongoing search for corned beef (for New Years). Turns out, Star Market didn’t have it either (not even the butcher up the street from us had it), so we settled from a nice looking lamb shank and then picked up the last ingredients for a special pie I was making – both of which were for New Year’s Eve.

The lamb turned out AMAZING. I didn’t really have a recipe, just sort of went with a bunch of Taco-picked spices and a nice slow cooking process, and also beer, always beer.

Nothing like eating beer while you drink beer if I do say so myself.

Our featured beer of New Year’s Eve was “Route 101” by Ipswich Ale Brewing, a fairly local brewery.

As for that pie, it was a Pumpkin-Flan-Coffee Pie. Yes, a Pumpkin, Flan, and Coffee Pie – and it was awesome.

Like most of my creations there was no recipe, I just went for it, and it turned out delicious. I have a pretty good track record with just randomly creating things. They might not aesthetically score many points, but the flavor is generally good.

So, with our slow-cooked semi-corned lamb, beer, and hybrid pie we brought in the New Year by doing what we do best, staying in our apartment. 😀

We had talked about going out for some of Boston’s “First Night” celebrations, but it was cold and raining so we just stayed put and watched it all on TV. Actually that isn’t true, we could see Hancock Tower (er.. I guess it’s know known as the lackluster 200 Clarendon building) lit up like a candle. It’s kind of hard to see in this photo, but the building generally only has a flashing little red light on top, but on New Year’s Eve – or at least this New Year’s Eve (we’ve only been here for one) – they lit it up like a candle on top, it was pretty cool.

While waiting for the local fireworks (and the ball in NYC) we played a few games, starting with Blokus Duo – an instant Pigsten favorite due to the colors.

We also played a couple games of Scrabble Slam – including trying to do it with 5 cards instead of 4, which made the game literally impossible – though that was kind of fun in its own way. Then, soon enough Boston’s fireworks started, and we were able to watch them out our window and on TV – always funny.

And that was pretty much our New Year. Nothing to fancy, but still fun. Each other + the boys + food + beer = happiness. SB even managed to stay up until Midnight! She struggles these days. :p

Since SB took the 2nd off, and I didn’t start classes until the 3rd our mini New Year vacation was extended by a day, which was nice – though I mostly spent it preparing for J-Term. Once SB was back at work and I was back to going to school daily things quickly returned to normal and now we are all in our “busy bee” schedules again. Valentino and Pig are in their last semester at BC, and Tristen is – like me – on his final stretch of law school. SB is working two jobs, and trying to grow her Yoga practice. Pigsten is continuing Clifford School, and naturally has lots of construction work to do.

Speaking of Pigsten, the little fellow turned 1 on January 4th! We celebrated with some of his favorite things, a green drink, colorful things that look like rocks, as well as some gummy worms which Pig is obsessed with so Pigsten likes too! Seems like just yesterday Pigsten came to be known as Pigsten.

We still aren’t entirely sure he knows what a birthday is, but he was very pleased with his tasty colorful things and opportunity to use his truck!

So, in other words, things have gotten back to “Normal” here – insofar as such a thing as normal exists in the Taco household. 😉

Thus, the Christmas tree and presents and holiday movies have given way to the January grind, complete with a foot of snow on the ground. But, there are a lot of exciting things in the pipeline. None of which are quite finalized yet – and in fact most of them are still closer to ideas than actual plans – but I’ll be sure to share those things as they begin to solidify. In the meantime, I’ll keep on keeping on, as will Dinosaur Bear. In fact, Dinosaur Bear turns five years old this year, and while it wasn’t always known as Dinosaur Bear, it’s the same blog with the same ole’ me, so it counts. :p

2016 had some incredibly exciting events. From New Mexico, to Montana, to Wyoming (and briefly Idaho!), to Canada, to Alaska, to trains, planes, automobiles, boats, ships, and even a Unimog. Knowing SB and I, we won’t settle for too much of the mundane, so here’s to 2017 and whatever excitement it ends up bringing our way. 🙂

So the Holidays have come and gone. It is no great surprise that I didn’t manage to write a post while at home, which was really little more than wishful thinking last post. Still, I have just a little bit of time before I leave again (this time for work, not fun) so here is an overview of SB and I’s Holiday Season 2015.

It started on Christmas-Eve-Eve-Eve, which was less than 12 hours after the end of my last 10 hour exam of the semester.

As usual, we kept things pretty low-key here in the household. SB and I don’t technically buy gifts for each other anymore, and haven’t for a few years, but we normally do something to celebrate. The boys of course do get presents.

They really enjoy opening things. The good news about our children is that they don’t want for much and are happy with whatever they receive.

This year they even had some treats (Chia bars) in their stalkings.

All said and done it was a great morning. The boys got three candles (Gun Powder, Topsoil, and Cedar & Saffron – it’s not hard to figure who got which one), some Chia bars, some hot cocoa (to be shared with me), some Chukar Cherries and Biscottis (from Washington!) and everyone got some more coffee (including Valentino’s favorite “Raska” [Yukon] blend).

After our celebration we went out for lunch, which is our Christmas tradition. It was raining, but not cold (it was in the 60s – craziness). We went downtown to the “One Financial Center” which was a fancy building.

The mushroom sandwich I had was really good, but overall the place was basically a glorified cafeteria for business people. The real excitement came after lunch when we finally went down and visited Harpoon Brewery which was on our Boston Bucket List.

We were originally planning on going to the Boston Ballet (also on our Boston Bucket List) to see The Nut Cracker but ended up changing our minds due to the price and some inconvenient elements to buying the “Student Rush” tickets. So now we’re just going to go see Swan Lake instead, which is something SB hasn’t seen before (I haven’t seen either).

But back to Harpoon, we took the Silver Line down there. Harpoon is actually in the Sea Port district, which is what it sounds like, a sea port.

From the bus stop it was literally “Follow the Harpoon Road”:

Which lead to the front doors, adorned with a big “H” handle, which I enjoyed more than I probably should have.

Inside they had a big Christmas Tree, made from their Winter Warmer cans.

We were going to do the 2pm tour, but it was full, so we had to wait for the 3pm tour. This wasn’t an issue because the “waiting room” is a beer hall.

We quickly decided to get some beer (or rather had decided before even arriving) and went with their specialty sampler, which contains some small-batch, limited variety beers.

I was not a big fan of the Maple Cider, but SB seemed ok with it (she is more of a cider person than me). But I thoroughly enjoyed the other beers, and the Tea Party Ale may have been the most “smoky” beer I have ever tried, I swear there was liquid smoke in there or something.

A lot of the offerings here were not available anywhere else (kind of like at Sam Adams).

And although they don’t have a food menu per se, they do have AMAZING pretzels.

They are both huge and gooey. Also, they come with cheeses and sauces made from various Harpoon beers, and if that wasn’t enough the pretzels are made from leftover brewing yeast. Yup.

Soon enough we started the tour, which cost 5$.

At first I wasn’t so sure about that 5$ as most brewery tours are free. But that changed soon enough. We first passed through a “staging” area for shipment. It was so much beer, this picture below was only about 1/3 of it.

Then we passed into the actual brewing warehouse.

In this room I learned that Harpoon was founded by three Harvard graduates (none of whom knew how to brew, but appreciated finer beer – so they hired a brewer) and that the building it is in was used as a dry dock to build Destroyers during WWII. It had sat empty since then (mid 80s) and when the founders bought it there was still a bunch of nautical stuff in there – thus the name Harpoon.

Next up was the tasting room, which is where that 5$ paid dividends. Plus there were tons of cool old beers in there.

The way it worked was that you had 15 minutes to try as much of the on-tap samples as possible.

Challenge accepted.

And while the glass were small, they were also, as mentioned, unlimited.

All of which were good, I was surprised by how strong Leviathan was (10% ABV), but I think Hoppy Adventure might have been my favorite, while Raz was my least favorite.

After our 15 minutes of fame, the tour continued.

We also got to see the packing area in action.

Afterwards the tour wrapped up and we headed over to the gift shop to see if we could find a magnet. Sadly we couldn’t find a magnet, but we did find something else.

Its the Harpoon UFO Hefeweizen, which neither of us had had before. Kudos to SB, she was actually the one that pressed to get a growler. I’m glad we decided to get one, as now we have one from both Samuel Adams and Harpoon! More on this bad-boy at the end of the post.

The next day, Christmas Eve-Eve, we began our trek home.

The boys are good travelers, though this was Pig’s first time on a plane! He was pretty excited.

As we took off the ride was a bit rough, and we did that “drop” thing in the air a few times, but nothing too extreme.

If the bumpy ride bothered Pig, he certainly didn’t show it.

After the bouncy start we were up and away, with mostly smooth sailing.

It was storming back home, but the landing was surprisingly mellow, aside from the horizontal rain. MIL picked us up and Tristen immediately went for his favorite pillow, or perhaps crown is a better name for it.

Our first Christmas was at MIL and FIL’s, where we were of course greatly spoiled. Of course the Boys also got spoiled, including their new tent (or “Rastle”).

Flopsy joined in on the fun.

Aside from presents at the three houses (Christmas Eve: MIL/FIL, Dad | Christmas: Meem) there was also plenty of alcohol to be found. And by alcohol I mean beer (to be fair there was all kinds, but really I just like beer).

Jiahu is based on a recipe/residue from around 9,000 years ago, from Northern China. Preserved pottery jars found in the Neolithic villiage of Jiahu, in Henan province, have revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit was being produced that long ago, right around the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East! Fast forward to 2005. Molecular archaeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology calls on Dogfish Head to re-create another ancient beverage, and Chateau Jiahu is born. In keeping with historic evidence, Dogfish brewers use brown rice syrup, orange blossom honey, muscat grape, barley malt and hawthorn berry. The wort is fermented for about a month with sake yeast until the beer is ready for packaging. Like most of the Ancient Ales I’ve had thus far, this rides the line between beer and wine. However, at ~9,000 years old, this is by far the oldest beer I’ve ever had and coming in at 10% ABV it definitely wasn’t weak in the knees (it was only 10 IBUs though).

Next up was the Black & Blue, which while not an ancient ale, still packed a punch (10% ABV).

Black & Blue is a Belgian-style golden ale fermented with blackberries and blueberries. Because we dose Black & Blue with real berries rather than artificial flavoring the fruit comes through in the flavor, not just the aroma. The pureed berries are added as the beer leaves the brewhouse. In fermentation, the yeast feeds on sugars from the barley and the berries, giving Black & Blue a unique complexity and a high ABV. It was actually pretty dang good for a fruit beer. It had just the right about of sweetness and bite (25 IBUs).

Last up was Birra Estrusca, which to be totally honest I couldn’t even figure out the name of for awhile because they split it along 3 lines of text.

Birra Etrusca was my New Year’s Eve beer (well, the first one anyways). This beer is based on a beverage that may have been enjoyed by the Etruscans (Tuscany) of Ancient Italy around 800 BC. A strong ale containing an Italian heirloom grain called Cappelli Senatore, along with pomegranate juice, raisins, and hazelnut flour, together with 3 types of honey: chestnut, wildflower, and clover. Spiced with several hop flowers, Gentian root and tree resin (think Myrrh) in the kettle. It leaned a bit too much on the wine side of the scale, which isn’t surprising considering that it came from Italy (or rather what would eventually become Italy). At 8.5% ABV it was the “weakest” of the three Dogfish Head beers I received, tough 8.5% isn’t really a weak beer in Murka.

Moving on, on Christmas Eve night we had a cool full moon, the first time such a Christmas Eve full moon had occurred since 2007 (and wont happen again until 2016).

Sadly it didn’t come out too well since I used my phone, I would have used the shiny new camera FIL bought us, but we hadn’t received the screen protector for it yet.

After Christmas had came and gone, Meem and Daryl 1 and the boys (including Flopsy, his first ever out-of-MIL/FIL’s adventure!) went out to run some errands and eat.

Valentino was quick to don his brand new Bears jersey he received from Grandma Meem, while Flopsy brought along his trusty football to match.

Pig was rocking his winter hat (from MIL).

As was Tristen.

After hooking Daryl 1 up with his sweet authoritah’ leather jacket, we decided to go eat. We were going to try Little Zagreb (an amazing steak place) but found out it was closed on Sundays. So we went to outback instead.

Tristen was kind enough to let me eat my potato.

The following day I went out on a duo trip with Meem (via some “Meem Coupons” I won long ago in an Easter Egg hunt where SB and Daryl 1 tried to cheat against me and tied my shoes together and blocked me and what not). Meem and I went and saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This was actually my second time seeing it, I had went out for dinner and a movie with two friends the same night SB and I arrived home (I see my friends all of 1-2 times per year anymore). Star Wars was just as good the second time. We almost didn’t see it, it was sold out in the first theater, so we drove across town and watched a later showing. After the movie we tried to go to Little Zagreb, but it was still closed for the holidays, despite their website saying they were open (we later found out, via Daryl 1, that their Facebook said they were closed). So we went to a place called Crazy Horse (which I had went to with SB, Dad, and Stepmom back around my 21st birthday and gotten very drunk at).

It was half gone at that point, but you get the picture. It was funny, our waitress didn’t know which Dogfish Head they had, so she went and asked. The bartender told her it was their Pilsner, which is what she then told me. However, it was the 60 Minute IPA. That probably would have worked on most Coors Light-swilling undergrads, but not me. Of course I didn’t complain because I like the 60 Minute.

For dinner I actually got to eat my steak this time.

I actually had more steak while home than I had had in the 1-2 years prior, easily. In fact we finally did get to go to Little Zagreb after being denied twice. This third time (‘s a charm) it was Meem, SB, Daryl 1, the Boys (including Flopsy) and I.

SB and I shared the sirloin for two, it was just as amazing as I remembered. Tristen ate himself into a coma.

Then, on New Years day, when Dad, Stepmon, and Daryl 2 were taking SB and I back to airport, we stopped at The Coachman for lunch, where I had corned beef and cabbage for good luck and because I hadn’t already eaten like 12 pounds of red meat while we were home.

We got to the airport early and decided to just head in since it was so dang cold (winter had finally arrived – next year). The flight back was pretty non-eventful, though we did get to see some cool weather, such as when we broke through the cloud cover.

And found puffy cotton candy skies (Pig was amazed).

At one point we noticed all the Boys looking out the window at something.

Turns out it was a really cool “hatch-mark” pattern in the clouds.

Had I not quit my meteorology program I could have told you what caused that.

Before too long the sun started to set, which makes sense since it gets dark at 1pm in Boston.

Right around this time SB and I noticed something interesting. Tucked away in one of the little seat-back inserts, and way down at the bottom of said insert, was a small-font sentence that said there were free cocktails on New Years Day. SB asked about it, and sure enough, certain days of the year Southwest gives free booze. Of course they DO NOT go out of their way to mention this. In fact the Flight Attendant pretty much confirmed outright that they don’t tell you about it, or even hint at it, or really even want you to find it. But we did. Since we were in the air and still had to navigate public transportation home we opted to share a Leinenkugel’s Cranberry Ginger Shandy.

It was really good, definitely something I’d recommend and would buy in a six pack. It was basically a shandy for winter time.

After our beer it was getting dark, so we used the last little portion of the flight to close our eyes and chill (I can’t sleep on planes).

And before too long we were back in Boston.

Our flight actually arrived about 25 minutes early, but we lost all that time waiting on our luggage. We normally don’t check luggage on the Holidays, but we took it home this year to carry presents to, and from, home.

So, all in all it was a very busy, yet fun holiday trip for us. We got lots of spoils (material and otherwise) and enjoyed getting to see everyone. It was definitely a nice break after the law school exam craziness, and while I have hardly any time at home before New Mexico, I still wish the holidays could have lasted just a little bit longer. 🙂

Speaking of things lasting a bit longer, that Harpoon growler (UFO Hefeweizen) was actually supposed to be drank within 72 hours… whoops. SB and I didn’t get to it until ~288 hours later, a full 216 hours past the recommended drinking time. The bad news, it had gone a little flat. The good news, it was still good and it wasn’t completely flat.

Bearing in mind that this beer was 216 hours past its “Best By” date, I have to stay that it turned out pretty good. The aroma has a faint but clear citrus-like character. This is produced by the special yeast and accounts for the Bavarian tradition of serving hefeweizens with a lemon. The lemon accentuates the yeast’s fruity, tart fragrance. It has a soft mouthfeel and a refreshing, light body. The wheat malts and subtle hopping give the beer a mild, delicate flavor. I’d really like to try this beer at full crispness, but still, I don’t think SB and I will have any problems polishing off this growler tonight. 🙂 Of course its only 4.8% ABV, so we won’t be getting too crazy.

Anyways, I’d actually like to spend some time relaxing before bed since I have to pack tomorrow, so, although I said it last post, I’ll repeat it again here since this is Dinosaur Bear’s inaugural 2016 post.

The good news is that since I’ve been keeping a blog I don’t really need to do any large scale recap of 2014, the posts speak for themselves. Also good news is that I can (for now at least) actually access my blog without going through some Eastern European proxy. This means that I might actually bother to post, because yeah, the proxies were getting really old, really fast. Nothing like taking 5 minutes to upload an image just to have it be broken.

But I digress. 2014 has came and went and oh what a year it was. SB and I moved across the country, started graduate school, and became big people living out on our own. Maybe not big-big people, but still big people. I also got to do a lot of travel, search the blog if you are curious. I love traveling. In fact, I currently find travel to be vastly superior to human children, we’ll see if that ever changes. The problem is that its expensive and money is not something that grows on trees, except that it does, but not the kind you can spend. But still, I traveled, and I enjoyed it.

(The boys travel with us pretty much everywhere)

The holidays were a blast, it was nice getting to see all the family and Meem even took us on a magical hotel and spa adventure. Not to mention all the pressies and spoilins’ we got from all the parents and the extended family. SB and I even won at our first casino trip (1.63$ if you were curious, make it rain). Also, the boys and Mr. Bear got to lead the good life.

(Mr. Bear and the boys prepare for a wild night of drugs, hookers, and gambling while the humans go out for tour and a dinner)

All in the all the holidays were best summarized by good food, good company, and good times. I am honestly a bit sad to see them go, but time marches on.

Like all years, 2014 had its problems, but on the whole I definitely consider this a year of forward progress, which is nice because it continues my streak. While its true that all years are technically forward progress, as far as life goals go, I’ve been pretty good about forward progress since about 2008. 2006-2007 were sort of my “dead” years (though one can argue that even these were part of the path), but I’ve bounced back quite nicely. Hopefully I won’t jinx myself. 2015 has the promise to maintain the forward progress, but its going to be a academically/professionally busy year, likely the busiest I’ve had in a long while, if not ever.

So, thanks for the memories 2014, see you on the other side, or wherever it is years go once their time has run.

(Floppsy takes in some Iron Man with Tristen and Valentino post-pressies)

Here at the law school I’m starting what is known as “Winter Term” or, more colloquially, “J Term” (January Term). Its essentially a three week long mini semester that is crunched between Fall and Spring semesters. For 1Ls, you took what is called a “Problem Solving Workshop,” and yes, you have no choice. Its basically three weeks of group-project Hell that culminates in a presentation to an actual partner at a law firm in downtown Boston, also a group project. The entire premise of the course is both inter- and intra-group work (because trying to deal with one group isn’t bad enough). If it is not obvious, I am far from enthusiastic about this class. Its all group work, it lasts (literally) up to 8 hours per day – five days a week, the second week has a huge weekend-consuming project due on a Sunday, and its early enough in the morning that I have to get up 1.5 hours earlier than normal. The only, and I mean only redeeming factors are: Its only three weeks, and its a Pass/Fail course. From what I gathered, the vast majority of people pass, but that doesn’t mean its not group project Hell.

(My future library, assuming I survive law school and avoid crushing poverty)

I’m still waiting on grades and still trying to get a summer job. It will likely be about another month before I get grades, hopefully not that long until I know about a job, but it could realistically be much longer. [Edit: The same day this is posted I was contacted, I got a summer jerb!] So really I’m in a bit of a stasis. Stuck in some J Term Pass/Fail group project with the “real” classes and “real” grades still about a month away. Thankfully J Term your 2L and 3L years is much, much more open in regards to what you decide to do with your time. But for now, I’ll be counting down the days until this Problem Solving Workshop is in the rear-view mirror. But who knows, maybe I’m expecting it to be so very bad, that my abysmal expectations will actually make it better than I am anticipating. Or maybe the self-fulfilling prophecy will kick in. Who knows.

Anyways, that is really all I have for tonight. I need to get to bed early so that I can get up early to go get in my assigned seat and make sure my partners have got their supplies to do our first project (we have one each day). The parallels between this and kindergarten are not lost on me, trust me.